Josie Sadler (1871–1927) was for twenty years a leading American stage comedienne known for her "Dutch" (German) dialect routines and heavy-set appearance.

[1] Her superior work came to the attention of manager John Russel and she was rewarded with a bit part in Natural Gas.

[1] Her next appearance was in the February through June 1890 production of The City Directory at the Bijou Theatre in New York, in the role of an elevator operator named "John Smith".

[1][3] Sadler then appeared in 2 more John Russel productions, Easy Street and Miss McGinty, before engaging with Henry Dixey for revivals of the shows Patience and The Mascot.

[4][5][1] In August 1897[6] she appeared in the William Harris production Good Mr. Best, where she played the role of "Gretchen Slowe", which proved to be one of her favorite characters.

[1] Her next role (March 1898) was not "Dutch", but as a cockney named Jemima in Monte Carlo at the Herald Square Theatre.

[1] She is credited with originating the "Dutch Girl" role (the "naïve immigrant") on stage, in her performance in the 1899 play Prince Pro Tem.

[1][4] Here she not only starred alongside Fred Lennox in the role of "Wild Rosie of Yucatan," but wrote and performed the hit song of the play, "Oh, If I Could Only get a Decent Sleep.

[10] Following this, she appeared in the Alfred Baldwin Sloane musical Broadway to Tokio (January 1900),[11] where she again sang "Oh, If I Could Only get a Decent Sleep".

[1] The same year she appeared as "Miss Tiny Daly" in the play The Mimic World, which ran for 100 performances at the Moorish Casino Theatre and the Grand Opera House.

[15] She appeared in a play entitled Will O' Th' Wisp for the Summer 1911 season at Chicago's Studebaker Theater[16] and was among the featured performers of the 1912 Ziegfeld Follies.

[15] Although she was uneducated in business or in electrical science, she did the bookkeeping and ran the daily operations with the assistance of her son, William Geddes.

[15] The career transition was reported to be successful, she credited her show-business background with giving her the ability to judge people's characters quickly, and with instilling her with resourcefulness and perseverance.